New Microsoft Office 365 announced with a bang

This week Microsoft has unleashed what was expected to be Office 15 in a while new set of functionality and applicability to different work environments: Office 365. This software is set to be released in four editions, that being Office 365 Home Premium, Small Business Premium, ProPlus, and Enterprise. No pricing and final release dates have been dropped just yet, but a preview downloads have been made available immediately.

The first version of this software is set to work in the home – Office 365 Home Premium will be available for installation on up to 5PCs per license and includes 20GB of SkyDrive storage. This version includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher for apps, and includes 60 minutes of Skype credit per month.

Next is Office 365 Small Business Premium – this version made for up to 10 employees, with 5 installations per user. This version includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath and Lync. Office 365 ProPlus includes 25 user accounts, each account able to install on 5 computers. ProPlus also includes the same applications as the Small Business Premium package: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath and Lync.

Office 365 Enterprise brings on everything that ProPlus includes, same software, same users, but includes the ability to archive and hold your company’s email in the cloud with Exchange Online. If you’re a user that does not use anything other than Office Web Apps at the moment, you’re also in luck – they’ll remain free through this release and beyond.

You can download the customer preview for everything from Office 365 from their download and preview site now. Check it out and let us know how you like it!